


Anywhere

by kindlystrawberry



Category: Legally Blonde - Hach/O'Keefe/Benjamin
Genre: Alcohol, Banter, Cuddling & Snuggling, Drunken Flirting, F/M, Fluff, Post-Engagement, mentions of alcoholism from people in emmett's past, your honor they are absolutely Whipped for each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-13
Updated: 2020-12-13
Packaged: 2021-03-10 18:55:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,943
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28041993
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kindlystrawberry/pseuds/kindlystrawberry
Summary: He’s making it difficult to walk back to his apartment, but Elle can’t say she doesn’t like the solid, warm weight of her fiancé against her. Even if they’re stumbling a bit. She’s glad she chose the 3-inch heels tonight over the 6.-Emmett wakes up with a hangover and his amazing girlfriend-- fiancé-- curled up against him.
Relationships: Emmett Forrest/Elle Woods
Comments: 22
Kudos: 80





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I’ve been on a Legally Blonde spiral lately, and every time I think I’ve hit rock bottom Elle and Emmett pop out with a pink bedazzled shovel and just keep on digging deeper so here we go!! Hope you like it.

“Elle.” Emmett somehow manages to slur on a one-syllable name. He’s leaning heavily against Elle’s side, arm wrapped around her back and chin on her shoulder, snickering  _ and _ sounding in awe at the same time, like he’s just discovered the secret meaning to life while thoroughly drunk. 

He’s making it difficult to walk back to his apartment, but Elle can’t say she doesn’t like the solid, warm weight of her fiancé against her. Even if they’re stumbling a bit. She’s glad she chose the 3-inch heels tonight over the 6. 

“Yeah, Em?” Her voice patient but mildly exasperated, and yet somehow overwhelmingly fond above it all.

He manages to lean closer still, enough that Elle can smell the alcohol on his breath when he whispers, “We’re engaged.”

She laughs, heart bubbling, and Emmett makes a slightly nauseous sound at the way the movement of her shaking shoulders jostles him around. 

“Yes, I know.” Her voice is filled with nothing but love. Even with Emmett almost entirely leaning on her, Elle’s steps feel light.

“What?!” Emmett, for his part, sounds shocked. Though his arm is still around her back he moves off of her to stand up slightly straighter ( _ slightly _ being the keyword) and shoots a suspicious squint at their surroundings like they’re being tracked by paparazzi. “Who told you?”

Elle laughs again, swatting his shoulder affectionately. “I was there, silly! On one knee and everything!” 

“Oh. Right.” The universe-questioning kind of puzzlement that could only ever be achieved by someone well-and-truly drunk remains on Emmett’s face a moment before it slips back into a dorkily, helplessly in love expression. It makes Elle’s heart thrill. For as much as she has experience in relationships, she’s not sure she’ll ever get used to the way Emmett looks at her— like she’s the brightest star he’s ever seen, and he’s still waiting for his eyes to adjust even after all these years. 

“I love you,” he adds, a moment later.

Elle grins as she fishes for her copy of the key in her purse. “I love you too. But you’re probably going to want to get off me, because the door to your building is impossible to push without two hands, no matter how much CrossFit I do.”

It’s rare that Emmett gets drunk like this, and it’s even rarer that Elle isn’t right there with him. But strangely enough, she hadn’t felt the desire to drink— even as Enid sent most of their peers under the table— and Elle thinks she must have still been too giddy from the graduation to be enticed by liquor.

And honestly? She wants to give past-Elle a high five for leaving present-Elle sober enough to fully appreciate the spectacle that is drunk and newly-engaged Emmett Forrest. 

God, he’s adorable.

And heavy, for as lanky as he is.

She laughs yet again, this man always making her cheeks hurt, and playfully takes another swat at him. “I said get off! I love you but it’s  _ hot _ and I want to go inside before my makeup runs.”

Emmett obliges on unsteady feet. Ever the lawyer, though, he shoots her a half-questioning, half-foggy look. “I thought you wore waterproof makeup today.”

Elle just lets out a vague hum in response as she pushes her shoulder into opening the damn door. 3-inch heels were definitely the right choice. Another point to past-Elle.

The sweet feeling of air conditioning greets them as Elle grabs her fiancé’s hand and pulls them into the modest lobby. 

In just a few minutes they’re up the flight of stairs and in front of Emmett’s door, and Elle’s about to use the key to open it when he suddenly turns her around and pushes her up against it, kissing her with so much urgency that it takes her breath away. 

He pulls back just enough to murmur, “Is this okay?” because he’s Emmett so  _ of course he does _ , because he always, always checks _.  _

As she eagerly nods, already pulling his lips back down to hers, Elle’s not sure if she could love him more than she does in this moment. She wants to try, though.

Luckily she’ll have the rest of their lives to. 


	2. Chapter 2

Emmett wakes up feeling like literal death itself. Okay. Maybe not _literal_ death, but whatever its closest friend is. Or enemy.

His head pounds, his joints ache, and his pulse is racing. Wait. Actually, that last part might be due to a different reason. 

As he squints his eyes against the warm late-spring light of Boston filtering in through his window, he recognizes the feeling in his chest: he’s well and truly happy. Not in a “fix everything” kind of way, because that doesn’t actually exist, but in an “everything will work itself out the way its meant to” kind of way; an “I have you by my side” kind of way; a “Woods-comma-Elle is curled up against his side and Oh My God she proposed yesterday and isn’t it so cute how her hair is smushed against her cheek in every odd direction and oh he’s going to get to see this expression for countless mornings for the rest of his life and—” yeah. That kind of way. 

The grin’s on his lips before Emmett even notices it forming. Actually, something throbs in his temples and he lets out a groan, realizing even smiling makes him suddenly nauseous, but it’s definitely worth it.

Elle is always worth it.

Elle is also letting out a soft noise in this moment, something between a yawn and a good morning, and Emmett realizes he must have woken her up. Her head is pillowed against his shoulder and her hand is resting delicately on his chest. When she opens her eyes and looks up at them they’re already giddy and bright, and the sleepiness that clouds them is quickly evaporating.

“Morning,” Emmett says quietly, sleep-rough voice sounding like it’s overflowing with affection even to his own ears. 

“Good morning!!” Elle calls out with her usual level of over-enthusiasm that Emmett adores, even in this moment as it makes him toss his head back against the pillow with a soft groan and another throb of his temples. 

“Oh,” she continues, this time at a much more reasonable whisper. “Sorry. I almost forgot about how drunk you got last night. No wonder you have a hangover.”

He can’t help but wince slightly. With the track record of men in his and his mom’s life, Emmett has seen more than his fair share of how liquor can turn bad, fast. It’s one of the big reasons he almost never drinks past one glass of champagne or a single bottle of beer, max. And it’s not like he needed the liquor to feel happy last night; that couldn’t be farther from the truth. It’s more like, he was so overjoyed and kind-of-still-in-shock from the day’s events (re: his amazing girlfriend’s graduation, as well as his amazing girlfriend’s _proposal)_ that he eagerly accepted whatever drinks they had for celebration, and then just… kept on going.

But the way Elle— his now fiancé, he internally corrects himself, happily— adds, “It was really cute,” with a sort of dreamy, reminiscent look on her face makes a blush crawl up his neck, and he thinks he must’ve not been so bad, then. 

He’ll be careful not to make it a habit, either way. 

“Oh no, not ‘cute.’” Emmett says, putting a hand over his eyes dramatically even as his voice drips with sarcasm. “How am I supposed to keep up my rugged bad boy image now?”

Elle snorts, burying her face into his chest to try and stifle the sound, and it makes Emmett’s heart stutter a few times as he glows with pride. 

“Em, hon, most of what you drank last night were piña coladas and strawberry daiquiries. I don’t know if ‘rugged bad boy’ was ever in the cards for you.”

There’s a smile tugging at his lips that totally negates the way he says, “You wound me, Woods.”

She laughs again, the sound music to his ears despite the way his hangover has them throbbing. The way Elle lightly pats his cheek silently says _I love you because of just how you are._

Emmett turns on his side to pull Elle closer, resting his chin on the crown of her head and enjoying the way she nuzzles her nose into his throat, burying herself against his chest. As sunlight filters through his bedroom, Emmett thinks not for the first time that this place only started feeling truly like home when Elle, clad in pink and full of love, wandered into his life. He’s excited to start a home of their own together, soon.

The next few minutes pass in peaceful silence. Emmett can’t see her face in this position, but his fiancé’s tracing small patterns against the side of his arm, letting him know she hasn’t dozed back into sleep. 

That’s why, after a bit of reminiscing and dawning realization, he doesn’t hold back from groaning and saying “Oh, god. My memories are coming back to me. Did I really…?”

Though remaining in the loose circle of his arms Elle pulls back enough to look at him as she does that supernatural thing that Emmett both loves and is shocked by where she instantly knows what he’s thinking and finishes his sentence for him.

“Take up Enid’s challenge to a drunk game of Feminist Trivia? Yep.”

He lets out another noise, this one interspersed with a sardonic laugh. “Drunk Emmett is really stupid, huh?” 

Elle puts on a face like she’s thinking over the answer, which pleasantly startles a laugh out of him as he adds, in fake indignation, “You’re not supposed to agree with me, you know.”

Her act stops when a smile breaks onto her lips, greenish-blue eyes crinkling with fondness. Emmett has an urge to run his thumb over those wrinkles, to commit the proof Elle’s joy to memory.

“Drunk Emmett isn’t stupid,” she says. “He’s very sweet. And adorable. But he doesn’t always make the best decisions. That’s okay, though, because he has me to look out for him.”

He suddenly hopes that Elle can’t feel the way his pulse turns slightly erratic, at the quiet, easily-given reminder that she’ll always be by his side, looking out for him— the wish Emmett’s been too nervous to voice since childhood, but has never stopped wanting. Internally he promises to always, _always_ do the same for her.

 _Externally_ , however, he just lets his eyebrows furrow up as he smiles a little bit. “What happens if you get drunk too?”

Elle’s grin, confident and bright and dripping with her usual level of genuine sweetness, is infectious. “Drunk Elle makes _great_ decisions, don’t you worry. Now come on,” she adds, rolling herself out of bed and pausing to stretch, her silhouette against the sunlight long and catlike, before turning around and holding out a hand. “We’ve got a lot to do today! Start looking at venues— pet-friendly ones, of course— call the girls who couldn’t make it yesterday, go to lunch with our parents, get ready for that interview I have lined up... Oh! But first a hangover cure for you. Delta Nu was super famous on campus for having the quickest and most efficient recipe, you’ll just have to ignore the taste a bit.” A pause, warm and patient and just a little bit teasing. “You coming?”

The grin on his face only growing, Emmett moves to stand and admires the way it feels when his engagement ring softly drags over Elle’s skin as they lace their fingers together.

“With you? Anywhere.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I was thinking of also making a short fic about drunk Elle and sober Emmett, so stay tuned for that possibility.


End file.
